A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea(35)
The weight of responsibility that she once felt for keeping the family afloat was now shared with Bassem. She realized what a good feeling it was to be supported and protected.
To make more money, Bassem started working in a coal factory. He worked long shifts that started at 7:00 a.m. and ended at 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. The pay was 500 to 600 LE per month, just a bit more than Doaa’s wage from her sewing and ironing, which she still did from time to time. After a late shift, he would arrive at Doaa’s place exhausted. He was losing weight and coughing from all the dust. Doaa would fix Bassem a plate, and after he was done eating, they would move to the balcony to smoke a shisha pipe together until well after midnight. In the later hours of the evening, their talk would eventually turn to their future. They agreed to delay having children until they could finish their educations and find good jobs.
At times, Bassem would tell Doaa that he couldn’t see any future for them in Egypt. One evening, while drinking tea, he told her that since Egypt’s military coup he was often taunted by Egyptians. “What are you doing here?” they asked him. “Why don’t you go and fight in Syria?” He mostly said nothing when he heard this, but he was starting to think they were right. Doaa reminded him that he came to Egypt because he had been arrested in Syria: “You told me you were tortured in that jail and left for days without food or water.”
Every time he received news from Syria, it seemed as if it were always about the death of another one of his friends. Sometimes Doaa was with him when the news came in over the phone. Whenever this happened, Doaa would squeeze his hand in hers and lean her head into the cove of his neck as his tears fell.
To cheer him up, they would listen to their favorite songs from Syria. Placing one earphone in his ear and the other in her own, she would lean her head close to his and they would listen together. They both loved a popular song by the Lebanese pop star Carole Samaha called “Wahshani Baladi,” or “I Miss My Country.” When the refrain came, they would sing it out loud together:
Oh, God, oh, my dear country, how I miss my country …
I can’t find anything to take the place of what is gone, except a moment in the arms of my beloved …
Tomorrow I will return, and we will both go back to that place … and the days will be so sweet.
One weekend, when Bassem took Doaa for a walk on the beach, Doaa knelt down in the sand and with her fingers wrote Bassem, to which Bassem added + Doaa, then Doaa wrote Syria in bigger letters underneath.
Staring at their work, Bassem said suddenly, “Let’s go back to Syria. I miss my family. Our place is there.”
“There is no way I am going back,” Doaa replied, even though only months before she’d wanted to do just that. “I’m responsible for my family and I can’t just leave them.” She thought of Bassem’s returning to Syria and being killed in the war and never seeing him again. “If you go, it will be the end of our relationship,” she said, masking her fear for him with anger. “You can take back all the gold that you bought me and go alone,” she said defiantly.
“But we have no future here,” Bassem insisted, dragging his toe over their names in the sand.
“I could be attacked there and raped in front of you and you would be helpless and unable to defend me,” she shouted. “Besides,” she said, softening her voice, “there is no work for you in Syria.”
Bassem stood in silence for a moment, thinking about what Doaa had said. Then he finally admitted, “You’re right.”
Doaa took his hand. “Be patient, my love. If you keep looking, you’ll find better work in Egypt,” she said, trying to make her voice sound as if she believed it herself.
However, the new climate in Egypt was not making things easier for them. One day, as Doaa and Bassem were out for a walk, they got briefly separated as they made their way down the street. A motorbike approached and slowed to a halt beside her. The driver, a nineteen-year-old boy whom she recognized from the neighborhood, suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. Doaa instinctively elbowed him, shaking her arm free, but when the boy grabbed at her again, she realized that he intended to force her onto the bike.
Doaa got away from him and ran toward Bassem, yelling, “Bassem, quick! We have to go home now.”
Somehow, Bassem had missed the entire episode, but sensing Doaa’s fear, he asked, “Did he do something to you?”
Doaa, seeing Bassem’s face turn red with anger, decided that it would be best if they left before the situation escalated. “No,” she lied. “Nothing happened.”
“That’s not true, he did something, didn’t he?”
Before she could respond, Bassem strode up to the young Egyptian biker and punched him in the face. The bike fell to the ground and the man leaped at Bassem. The two men began to fight, throwing punches and trying to wrestle each other to the ground.
“Bassem, stop, please, for God’s sake, stop,” Doaa yelled, worried that Bassem would get hurt and that the fight would only attract attention and get them into trouble.
“Go home, Doaa, I’ll catch up with you,” he yelled as he turned toward her.
The motorcyclist, seeing that Bassem was distracted, jumped back on his bike and sped away.
Doaa and Bassem collected themselves and headed toward home, but on their way back they saw the bike returning. This time the biker had a friend with him on the back of the motorcycle, and two other men followed on a second motorbike. They were carrying wooden sticks and shaking them menacingly in the air. One man drew a knife from his pocket as they closed in on Bassem and Doaa. Bassem pushed Doaa behind him and shouted at them to leave her alone.